Thanks for the suggestions!
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Iām so happy to hear this! It sounds like your son is having a great time and getting an amazing education. Loyola seems like a good fit for my kid too, and now that I hear your story I am even more convinced.
My son just applied early action to Loyola and indicated he wants consideration for the music program. Now, heās preparing to audition in January. He has a 3.9 and he plays 7 different instruments, with a focus on soul, funk, Latin and Motown. He is not a lifelong jazz player, but he wants to dive into it. This means heāll be auditioning in a genre that is relatively new to him, but he is talented and is working with his private teacher to prepare. (I wonder if thereās room in the audition process to play something of his choice, too, besides the required jazz standards?)
Any advice you or your son could give would be welcome. Iām so glad heās having a great experience.
I may have missed this, but would you share the university? Your kid sounds exactly like mine, and Iād love to have another suggestion for him to look into.
I will message you! 
Returning to this thread to thank you for the feedback. My son was admitted to Oberlin and will be majoring in Musical Studies! We think itās a great fit for him.
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@lkbux64 Congrats to your son! Oberlin is an amazing school. And how is your USC son doing? Is he a senior now? Time goes by way too quickly.
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Congrats! Mine is so happy at Oberlin and spends time with musicians who are majors, non majors, Timara, and Musical studies majors-- itās an incredibly inclusive musical environment and heās found great friends and colleagues. I hope the same for yours!
Hi @jazzpianodad! Thank you! My USC son is doing well and he has proven that we made the right call by not sending him to standalone music conservatory. Being at Thornton. which is the music school within USC, allowed him to discover (much to our surprise) that he wanted to pursue Computer Science as another course of study and is now going to get a dual degree from Thornton and Viterbi (engineering school). And while he technically a senior, given the late addition of the CompSci major, he will be taking a 5th year to finish up.
I hope all is well with you and your son!
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@lkbux64 My son knows a number of musicians who are also skilled in (and some who majored in) computer science. Great that your son had the option to pursue that! And that heāll have the choice between the two paths (some of the musicians my son knows who did computer science have stuck with music as their primary focus post-graduation while others decided on a computer science career).
The pandemic, of course, put a dent in my sonās performing and touring schedule, but at this point heās pretty much back to a pre-covid performing schedule. And has been getting some pretty interesting gigs lately. Including quite a few in NYC this month, so my wife and I have been able to hear him play pretty regularly (just got back from one of his gigs tonight)
All of which is hopefully encouraging for the parents on this board about to send their kids off to music schools. With enough dedication and passion, there is still a path in music. And itās so wonderful to have live music back in our world.
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